Valve industry professionals from around the world attended Valve World Expo 2012 in Dusseldorf, Germany from November 27 to 29. VMA President Bill Sandler summed up the event as being "outstanding." Bill represented VMA and shared a stand with our friends from the British Valve & Actuator Association. Show organizers said there were approximately 10,000 attendees.

“Attending this event confirms that the industrial valve and actuator industry is truly a global environment,” said Sandler.

“In addition to sharing a stand with our close allies and friends from Great Britain, I was able to spend some one-on-one time with my counterparts from other nations who stopped by our stand. Included were association colleagues from France, Italy, Turkey, Russia, India and China. In addition to the association community I was visited by representatives from all corners of the world seeking information on the North American valve and actuator industry. Many people echoed what we already know – the U.S. is on the rebound and domestic markets for valves and actuators are on the rise. Personally, I found the Valve World Expo to be much more beneficial to the VMA than the ACHEMA Show in Frankfurt early this year. Much more material was distributed and many more people stopped to talk instead of nodding from a distance. My British counterpart, Rob Bartlett of the BVAA, had a similar evaluation of the show. We definitely will place the show in our budget for 2014 as well as participating in Houston in June 2013. Talking to visitors also confirmed the positive status of Valve Magazine internationally.”

Many visitors stopped by the VMA booth and more than 500 copies of VALVE Magazine and 250 North American Valve Catalogs were distributed. Numerous VMA members (full and associate) had company booths while other members walked the show. All seemed very pleased with the event.

Jeff Kane of VMA member DFT Valves was one of the exhibitors and said, “We had a very good response at Valve World. We had done another show in Frankfurt in June, and this was a great opportunity to see some of those contacts again. It reinforced that DFT is a serious global player and we are concerned and interested in pursuing their business worldwide. We had visitors from more than 14 different countries at our booth, and of course also chatted with clients from the U.S. The Valve Manufacturers’ Association was great, rolling out the red carpet for us. Definitely worth the trip.”

Aneta Stephens of CRANE ChemPharma reflected on Valve World. “Again this year, CRANE participated at the Valve World Expo and Conference in Düsseldorf. We are pleased with the tradeshow results and note that the 2102 attendance was even higher than at the 2010 Expo. The continually expanding Valve World Expo is an excellent platform for all valve companies and key industry associations [like VMA and BVAA] and it presents great networking opportunities and expertise to all participants, valve manufactures and valve users alike. Overall, the event was filled with valuable customer meetings, networking opportunities, and media interaction. Tom Pozda, President of CRANE ChemPharma and Energy, and Louis Pinkham, our new Group President, visited the show and CRANE representative, Thorsten Beyer, presented a white paper during the conference portion of the show. “Minimizing Risk - a comparison between Bellows Sealed Globe Valves (BSGV) and traditional valve technologies” is available at the www.cranechempharma.com website.